It's been months since I added any progress to this thread so sorry about that. There are a few reasons but one of them is that part of this process has been very time consuming and whilst I got some of it done in January the finer work has taken ages but other reasons include me being lazy.
I've been working the interior keyslot area. From what I've seen virtually every helmet tends to end up with a lot of extra internal material at this point (also happens by interior of visor) and the fiberglass or resin tends to be very thick and requires thinning. Because of my general aversion to power tools I've done all that thinning by hand with files, rasps, and paper. Following a piece of advice from Ryan Day I've bought one of these for my next helmet:
I chose this brand because it was on sale but I'm sure they're all much of a muchness.
Once I'd thinned out the keyslots to the desired amount I lined up the calculator piece; there are loads of pictures in the gallery you can do this with. I chose one from 72 picture Edinburgh Art of Star Wars set to use. Although I don't find it particularly good as a long term glue I used Super Glue to hold it in place. It's good for this purpose because it sets quickly and it's enough to hold it in place until the other stuff goes in.
Once you've done that you'll need something to cover the lower slots. It looks to me like the material on the ESB helmet is of the same stuff as the visor. I still had plenty of off cuts and scrap from the actual visor cutting that I'd kept for just this purpose. I made my piece about 4.5 cm by 3.5 cm, again cut by hand with my trusty coping saw but any saw with a fine bade will work. Once you've cut it you'll need to line it up and lay it in place. Once it's in I used the same heat gun from the visor to shape it into place. I tried with gloves but needed to use my bare hands to feel it properly to make it fit so you might end up hurting your fingers here. Mine held itself in place quite well just under the MQ 1 piece.
Mine held itself in place quite well just under the MQ 1 piece.
I used Milliput to hold fix all this down permanently. I used superfine white because that's what I had most of. I considered getting some of the standard yellow colour for this but as it's not the right colour either and I knew I'd end up having to paint it anyway I went with what I had. Make small sausages and go slow being particularly careful when doing the MQ 1 piece so it doesn't come loose (hold it in place with one hand whilst applying the putty with the other). Once you've put some putty in so nothing comes loose you can work around the rest. Make sure you inspect the outside too because when you press it into place some of it will naturally become visible from the outside. I used a needle file to keep it tidy from the outside.
The putty is firm within about an hour and in twenty four it's rock solid. I need to do some paint tidy up around the putty which will be done after I've painted and finished off the putty itself. I think I might have gone a bit wide but overall I'm happy with it so far.
The already laid putty at the sides and holding the clips in place has also been dulled down with a grey paint. I used a grey acrylic from the Citadel/Games Workshop line.
Live dream.